The Lawyer (boyXboy)

In The Mind of Jack Darcy

**Alright, so as requested, the next few chapters will be from Jack's point of view!  Enjoy**

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I'm happy. I'm really happy for the first time in a long time, and it's all because of someone I barely know; someone I've just met. It's an odd feeling. One made even odder by the way we met. I'm not someone who has ever believed in fate, or that everything happens for a reason, but how else can something like this be explained? How is it that on that day I had to take a different route to work, got into an accident, and had to be taken to the hospital? How is it that on that day, the emergency room was so busy that I'd had to wait, and that it was a nurse who'd come in late to work that ended up with my file? And how is it that it would be that nurse, the one I'd been unable to keep off of my mind since our meeting, that I would happen to run into in a Starbucks across town, one I never go to, and that he would just happened to be the best friend of my niece? I find it hard to believe that all of that was just a coincidence. What are the odds of that all happening so that we could meet not only once, but twice? And also, what are the odds of that nurse, who is also twenty years younger, likes me too? And that right now we would be sitting here, introducing him to my kids for the first time, and that I'd be watching him draw a rough sketch of a fish on the back of a paper placemat for my daughter to color? I don't know what those odds are exactly, but it's probably something like one in a trillion.

Even Noah, who has barely looked up from his phone all day, keeps glancing up to watch Killian draw. It's a good sign. They're all good signs. Signs that just maybe I haven't waited too long to find myself, and that just maybe I still have a chance at finding love. Not that I love Killian, it's still far too early for that, but I do like him. I like him a lot. He isn't like Andrea, my ex-wife, or like any of the others I've met. He's different. And I'm not really sure how to explain that difference yet, but I know it's a good difference, and I think that's a good sign too.

"It looks like a real fish!" Maddi exclaims as he hands her the drawing. And I have to agree, in a bit of a cartoonish way. If I'd been given the same time and supplies, I probably would have drawn something that vaguely resembled Pac-man with a triangle tail coming out of its back. Nothing like this.

"Yes it does, now what do you say to Killian for drawing you such a nice fish?"

Maddi beams "Thank-you." She says as she picks up her crayons and begins to color the fish in a variety of purples and greens from the crayon box. Don't get me wrong, I'm a father and I love everything my children create, but there is a small part of me inside that cringes as I watch Maddie scribble all over the drawing. It's that same inner cringe you get when you walk into the kitchen at six AM on Father's Day, to find your children have destroyed your kitchen in an attempt to make you a breakfast that if you actually eat, will probably give you salmonella. But they are your children, and it's the thought that counts, and you love them, which is exactly what you keep telling yourself as you pretend to eat that inedible breakfast and bleach the hell out of that kitchen later.

Killian's face noticeably reddens "It's no problem." He says, with a little shrug of his shoulders as he tries to shrink himself. He really needs to learn how to take a compliment, because he's good. He's really good.

Under the table I grab his hand, lacing my fingers through his where I know the kids won't see. Beside me he tries, in vain, to hold back a grin as my thumb caresses the back of his hand, and he relaxes again. I too actually have to hold back a smile just at the sight of him, to avoid making my kids too suspicious. Not that they're really paying attention to us, and not that I don't want to tell them, because I do, I really, really do, I just still think it's too early.